


Stepping Into the Ring

by clumsygyrl (thegirlthatisclumsy)



Series: The Real Thing [2]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cat adoption, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:58:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlthatisclumsy/pseuds/clumsygyrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the circus, you had to make sure that you at least looked like you knew what you were doing.</p><p>If you didn't, well, they'd toss you to the lions.</p><p>Some times that wasn't just a figure of speech.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Into the Ring

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to Accept No Substitutes within the The Real Thing series. Also I can not, apparently, write anything with Clint without it turning into equal parts angst and equal parts ridiculous. I apologize.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: The rape/non con/assault bit is alluded to in an incident between Clint and an OMC. Clint is underage at the time of the incident. If you would like to skip that section of the story, it begins with "Clint was seventeen when he first killed a man." No graphic descriptions of the assault are written.

Clint was fifteen when he first kissed a boy and he knew right away that he liked it. He liked pretty girls with soft hair and skin just fine as well. He tightened his bow and shifted the quiver on his back and took it in stride. He put one foot in front of the other and kept his hands steady. 

In the circus, you had to make sure that you at least looked like you knew what you were doing.

If you didn't, well, they'd toss you to the lions.

Some times that wasn't just a figure of speech.

\+ + +

Clint was seventeen when he first killed a man. The death wasn't instantaneous. He heard about it when the circus was two towns over. A man at the diner had related the news to the waitress.

“That old bastard Clem died. Got stabbed right through the heart. He had his pants around his ankles and smelled like rotgut. Probably one of them night girls didn't like how he was holdin' on to 'em,” the old farmer wheezed.

Clint held tight to the hunting knife he'd taken from the drunk bastard. Clem, he thought in his head and even his mindvoice sounded like it was sneering. His hips still had marks and his eye was blackened. The circus hadn't made enough in sales to pay him that week and he needed to eat. Clint wished Darya was the real deal and could have crystal ball gazed and told him what had been waiting for him in that alley, but Clint remembered he gave up on wishing on stupid shit when he was six. The first words he learned how to really read were his parents' names on their tombstone. Barney had helped sound them out. “Devoted mother and father” were long words to a little kid. They were still hard words for a teen.

“Good riddance. He tried to put that pecker in the Olsen kid. Boy's never been the same,” she said and refilled the coffee cup in front of her.

“Surprising, though.”

The waitress set the pot back on the warmer and Clint's stomach turned. Clem had been flush with cash and the dead man had paid for this breakfast and Clint's dinner last night. Clint remembered washing his hands in a stream and taking Clem's knife with him. He wondered if he'd have to run faster and farther than the circus could take him. “What's surprising you, Red?”

“That the fucker had a heart at all. If the arthritis hadn't messed up these hands, well, he'd'a found himself at the wrong end of my shotgun. Always liked that Olsen kid. Polite-like, shame.”

“Like I said, good riddance, wish more of them got what was comin' to 'em,” she stopped at Clint's table and smiled. “Can I get you anything else, sweetie?”

“No, ma'am. Just the check, please,” Clint said not looking up from the half full plate of pancakes.

“See, politeness. It's missin' in this world. Your parents taught you good, boy,” the old farmer said and plucked the check from the waitress' hand. “Politeness gets rewarded. Ain't that right, Sheila?”

Sheila just laughed and handed over the check. She ruffled Clint's hair and Clint let out a breath.

He dumped the knife in a lake three towns later and sent a pair of knitted gloves to the diner with a note, “For Red. Kindness and courtesy should always be repaid.” 

He didn’t sign his name. He liked to think that Red knew who they were from.

\+ + +

It was not a dark and stormy night when Clint met Coulson “Agent Coulson of Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division” the Suit. Clint was two days past twenty three and covered in mud and blood. Most of the mud was Colombian and most of the blood was his. “So, sailor, usually a guy buys me a drink before he sees me au naturale,” Clint slurred and waved his unbroken hand at Mr. Man in Black.

Clint wondered who told this guy that wearing shiny shoes in a rainforest was a good idea.

“I was in the Army,” was all Coulson said before applying a field bandage to Clint's bleeding arm.

“Huh. Figures, you ever met an asshole named Barton?”

“Besides the one that's bleeding on my shoes?” Coulson's reply was quick and dry. 

Clint thought fondly of being dry. It had rained on his birthday. “Can't rain all the time.”

“One, do not pass out on me as I have a proposal for you. Two, thank you for taking out that sniper. Three, did you just quote The Crow?” Coulson had stripped off his tie and was using it as a tourniquet on his leg. The .50 caliber had missed him, but the shrapnel from the exploding jeep had sliced right through Clint's pants, thigh, and the upper part of his arm. Exploding arrows were shit with effects of acquired trajectory. Hindsight was 20/20 and Clint had perfect present sight. His future seeing was still mostly cloudy with a chance of being wrong all the time.

“You're babbling and bleeding all over me, kid,” Coulson said. 

“Sorry 'bout that. Next time, I'll let them put a bullet through you as I'm passing through minding my own business. An' I have a job. An' you're welcome. An' if youda met Barney you wouldn't think I'm an asshole. Well, more than usual assholes,” Clint winced when his body shifted and poured more blood out onto the ground and onto the bandages the Suit had managed. 

Coulson tapped his ear. “Medevac will be here in five minutes. Don't die until I at least show you our pamphlet.”

“Sure, sure.” Clint closed his eyes and heard the thud of heavy metal blades above his head. “Gotta stop being so fucking polite.”

Coulson laughed and Clint thought he felt a warm hand on his head. 

“'sides, the Crow was an awesome movie. Had the biggest hard on for Brandon Lee,” Clint said and then there was a needle in his arm and blessed pain-free darkness.

\+ + +

There was an op in Chiang Mai and Clint was perched up on the roof of one of the more reputable motels in the area. The air was heavy and dank with smoke laden moisture and Clint felt every breath he took was like breathing through wet cotton. It was hot, sweltering, and his body was almost lazy in the heat.

He loved it.

He thought back to days in the circus where he'd sneak into the animal cages to lie down, huddled with the show dogs or the elephants. It smelled like animal shit and hay but it was safe and warm. The circus never stopped, not for snow or rain or much of anything. Clint was cold more days than not and the meager hours of sleep pressed safe between wooden walls and fur or tough hide were a blessing. These days he had plenty of kevlar or cotton or leather to keep him safe from the cold. 

“You sure you don't need a spotter, Agent Barton?”

“Sitwell, Coulson doesn't bug me for not having a babysitter up here,” Clint replied easily and moved slightly. He was crouched on the balls of his feet and he knew that he could stay that way for at least another hour before he'd have to move. It was too light out for him to stand up in shooting form and he'd broken his crossbow en route to the target. The rifle was too bulky and loud. 

Not that Clint minded. The recurve of his bow was familiar and comforting in his hand. 

“Just trying to make sure you're okay. I'll catch hell if I get you scratched up,” Sitwell's tone was dry, but not as dry or right sounding to Clint as Coulson's voice would have been in his ear.

“Aw, you care. Also, not a toy, asshole,” Clint murmured spotting the target.

Sitwell snorted out a laugh and there were murmurs down the line. Clint faintly heard the word 'insubordinate', but he dimissed it. He was tracking the target. “Nah, you're a highly prized asset, Barton. Coulson would gut me if you came back in less than mint condition.”

Clint smirked and he picked up some dirt from the rooftop and watched it drift east in the hot wet air. “Well, you do know it is my birthday coming up soon.” 

“The big 29, right? I am not sure that that's how that analogy is supposed to work, man.”

“Whatever, jerk. Giving me back to Coulson in pristine condition is like a gift that continues to give,” Clint notched his arrow and felt the small smile hitch the corner of his mouth. “Counting it down.”

“On your mark, Agent,” Sitwell said all business now.

“Three, two,” Clint took in a deep breath and let loose on the exhale. “One. Hold onto your asses, it's about to get noisy, fuckers.”

The arrow threaded it's way through two open market stalls, a windchime, and straight into the eyesocket of Interpol's number four terrorist threat. There were screams and the sound of yelling down in the market place. Clint was quick in breaking down his kit and leaping rooftops.

“Need to know my ETA on the extraction site,” Clint said laughing as a bird flew right past his head.

“Two minutes, Agent. Good job,” Sitwell said and Clint heard the sounds of thudding feet and metal on metal. Closing shop PDQ and getting out of dodge ASAP was SOP.

“Thank you. Tell Coulson I get a cookie,” Clint said and leaped out into open air, pulling in his legs and tucking them in close. He rolled, shouldering himself up and over again. He was half a mile from his stop point and it looked like the skies were clearing. It was a good day for a run.

“Don't get too banged up,” Sitwell ordered and Clint just laughed over the line.

“Now you sound like Coulson.”

“God help me.”

Clint stopped at the lip of the next rooftop and crouched slightly and pushed back, heels drumming against tarred black roofs and loose tiles. He ran full out, laughing wildly. He flew up, up, up body framed by blue gray rain heavy skies and he came back down with a thud. “God help us all, man. God help us all.”

\+ + +

“What is this?” 

The crinkle of plastic and the soft thwap of something hit the back of Clint's head.

Clint blinked up at the overhead lights blearily. He reached down and almost fell off the couch. His fingers curled around the tube of donuts and smiled. “Your deductive skills are kinda rusty, sir.”

Coulson's face loomed above him, upside down and not happy. “Explain, Agent Barton.”

“These are a packaged dessert manufactured by the Hostess company. Full of nasty preservatives and heart stopping fats, but you seem to like them, sir. So, I got them for you. There is also a package of SnoBalls in the cabinet. And those, those are gross. I know from gross, I was raised on elephant ears and funnel cakes.” Clint swung his legs around and he tossed the package back up to Coulson.

Coulson caught them easily, still glowering at the chocolate covered pastries like they were at fault. Clint would love to see that dressing down. “That doesn't explain why you left them here and what you are doing in my office asleep on my couch.”

Clint grimaced and he rubbed the back of his neck. There was still plaster dust and blood in his hair. “You lost three agents today, sir. I just...” He realized how stupid it all seemed now. The look on Coulson's face when they had all finally emerged from the blown up building, the blown op. It hadn't been Clint's fault, but he felt like he should have been able to do something.

They'd all been trained to react in the correct way. It had sucked huge balls when the correct way still hadn't been good enough.

“Stupid now that I think about it. You eat those things when you're stressed out. I figured if any day was a bad junk food day.” He cleared his throat and stood. “Just wanted you to have something nice to distract you, sir. Sorry. I'll go.”

Coulson grabbed Clint's arm and flexed his fingers hard and Clint finally looked up from the fascinating scan of his boots. “Stay.”

“Sure thing, sir. Hey, you know, they deep fry those things at Carson's? They'd dip 'em in batter and stuff. So, maybe I was wrong about the SnoBall thing,” Clint said dropping down into the chair across from Coulson's desk.

Coulson said nothing, his mouth still pressed in a thin line, but the tension in his shoulders dropped a little and the tiny donuts were disappearing in quick precise bites.

Clint kept talking about circus food and animal antics. He talked until the table was littered with crumpled cellophane and bits of pink coconut and chocolate flakes.

If days later, Clint found a memo in his email with a simple, “It helped.” then Clint wasn't going to say anything.

He had plenty of quarters for the vending machine if it came up again.

\+ + +

Clint first kissed Coulson on his 27th birthday. Coulson was Phil by then and it was their second official date. They'd skated and tip toed around each other for four years (Clint had worked his way through a few disastrous relationships that had mostly ended in lots of frustration on the other partners' faces and in one instance a Mexican standoff. Phil had had two semi-serious relationships. Both with men and both ended amicably.) Phil had simply added to the end of one of Clint's debriefs that if Clint was amenable to seeing where they could take their friendship to a less than platonic level then it would be inadvisable for Phil to make the first move as he was, for the most part, in a position of power.

“Oh, you asshole, you actually think that?” Clint had hauled Phil across the desk and kissed his forehead with smirk. 

“Your aim sucks,” Coulson said and stacked the papers in his outbox. Clint's fingers were still wrapped tight around his tie.

Clint snorted and he leaned in, nuzzled Phil's neck and whispered hot and dirty. “Baby, you know my aim is fanfuckingtastic. I'm giving you till our fifth date to keep your virtue.”

Coulson neatly twisted out of Clint's grasp and had him over on his back on the top of his expense reports. Clint smiled up widely, even upside down that half smile of Coulson's was doing wonders for his dick. “It's cute that you think you're irrestible.”

Clint licked his lips and he did not miss the way Phil's eyes tracked the motion. “It's hot as fuck when you lecture me about mission protocol. I've damn near given myself carpal tunnel thinking about you fucking me while telling me how much better I can be in the field.”

Phil's eyes narrowed and the grip on Clint's wrists increased. “My apartment, 2100. We're sharing a meal, watching that movie monster marathon, and maybe I'll let you get to second base.”

Clint beamed and slipped out of Phil's grasp. “Sir, yes, sir.”

Phil straightened his tie and waved Clint out of his office. 

They managed the meal and the first twenty minutes of Godzilla before both their phones went off.

“Natasha,” they both said and grimaced. 

Budapest was the worst second date ever. Borscht and blood stained kevlar as badly as it stained Italian silk.

“I pick the place next time,” Clint had said breathless, pressed up against a dirty concrete wall while Natasha yelled rapid fire Russian at their Interpol liason and slammed back a celebratory absinthe shot.

“You picked this place,” Coulson said cupping the back of Clint's neck and pulling him in, reeling his aching body closer. 

Clint angled his head and licked Phil's lower lip tasting iron and ash. Phil shoved Clint back against the wall, head knocking back hard. Clint tasted blood and stale coffee in the kiss. Clint's tongue pushed for more, mapping out the soft palate and texture of Phil's mouth wanting to know all of him. His hands slid over now dirty expensive fabric, palms cradling muscled sides and the edge of Phil's tac vest. “Fuck,” Clint finally said tonguing the cut in his lip either from the right cross from the mobster they'd finally caught after four days of tracking or from the sharp edge of Phil's teeth.

Clint swore loudly in two different languages when Phil applied those teeth to his neck and then pulled back. Clint really liked the fact that he'd carry Phil's mark on his neck, he already ached from other bruises but this one he'd want to keep for as long as busted blood vessels would let him. 

“Fuck,” Clint groaned again and very blatantly adjusted himself.

“Later,” Coulson said, voice deeper, gravel rich and thick that Clint had to kiss him again.

Clint had his first kiss from Coulson on their second date and days after their first date and at the tail end of his 27th birthday. He had his second, third, and tenth kiss the very same date.

\+ + +

New Mexico was hot in a way that Clint had no way of quantifying. It wasn't the sultry moisture laden air of the jungle or even that of the swamplands of the Bayou. The heat was welcome, but the sheer rise in temperature was enough to even make him stumble when he stepped outside the trailer doors. “Christ,” Clint swore and Phil nudged him out of the way.

“I prefer to be called Phil,” he said dropping a kiss to the side of Clint's neck before adjusting his cuffs and stepping out into the weak morning light.

“Ha ha,” Clint grimaced and felt the sweat beading on his forehead. “This op sucks, sir.”

“Sure does,” Phil agreed without missing a beat. “But look at this way. You get to make all the hammer time jokes you want.”

Clint had to kiss Phil for that.

He really couldn't not at that point.

\+ + +

Clint was thirty four going on a hundred when he came to on the Helicarrier. He tugged at the restraints and felt more than heard the words. Clint barely remembered what he and Natasha talked about. It didn't matter. He'd fucked up and it was his time to make it up.

He felt like he couldn't make up for the lives he'd taken.

His feelings had never really counted for much.

The mission, as always, came first.

He'd find some way to apologize to Phil later.

He saw himself buying him a whole lot of cards and lunchboxes in his future.

The thought made him smile and he caught it as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

It was that thought that pushed him out of the bathroom to meet Phil's idol and offer his help.

Amends and gloating rights trumped guilt and remorse for now.

\+ + +

The battle was both too drawn out and too fast. His muscled burned from exertion and he had a multitude of bruises and cuts from the fight. The post-mission debriefing raged around him and he barely paid it any thought. His brain was noisy with the simple sentence that Captain Fucking America had uttered after Clint had consumed half his body weight in lamb meat and flat bread. “Agent Coulson was killed by Loki on the Helicarrier, Agent Barton.”

He had barely made it out onto the street before throwing up.

The Council was arguing with Fury and Fury was arguing with Hill who was arguing with Captain America. The team was yelling and cursing and weapons may or may not have been drawn. Clint didn't care. It didn't fucking matter what they did with him. He was responsible. It was his fault. 

“You don't blame the victim for the things he did that were out of his control!” That sounded like Hill. Clint thought that was nice of her since he vaguely remembered aiming a shot that would have broken her pelvis.

“He is a liability! We cannot in good conscience allow him-.”

“You don't allow shit! He's one of mine!” That oddly sounded like Fury. Clint had always thought Fury kind of just tolerated him.

“He was mind controlled. If anyone is to blame and should be blamed, it is my brother.” The deep voice was from the guy in the cape, Thor, Clint's mind supplied helpfully. Clint remembered almost putting an arrow through him in New Mexico.

There were fragmented pieces of memory that kept trying to jam their way to the forefront of his brain, but Clint kept pushing them back. There were soldiers and people he'd worked with that he knew he was responsible for making dead. He heard Loki's voice in his head, laughing at how weak he was and how pleased Clint was to do his bidding. 

“Stop,” Clint said after a few more minutes. “Just stop. You're right. I am a liability, but you know what? So are you,” he said finally looking up at the screen at the Council representative. “Loki made me his little meat puppet. He used my damn skills against me and everyone in this room. Now what you gotta ask yourself is what happens if another big bad ends up mind whammying anyone else. You can send me to Leavenworth or Timbuktu or whatever, but how about I give you and the psychics free rein in my brain to dig around so you can prevent this shit from happening again. Because I gotta tell you, it's not fun to know that you'd happily bend over for a guy with a shiny stick and do his bidding to kill and maim your friends just because he thinks.” Clint stopped and swallowed, the click of it sounding loud. “He said I had heart. That I had loyalty and faith and he just loved fucking with that, turning it and poisoning me with it. You want a guinea pig and scapegoat. Well, you got one. Do not ask Selvig. He won't last.”

“You think you will?” There was derision in those four words and Clint could not stop the flinch.

“I've been an agent for more than a decade and I've been tortured and been through interrogations before. What Loki did was so much more than that. He took what I held the most fucking precious and he made me kill it, hurt it, destroy it. The Helicarrier was my home and he made me burn it to the ground and piss on it. He made me hurt my best friend. He made me cause the death of my lover. I have got nothing fucking left to lose. So, take me apart and find out how you can make this NOT happen again.” Clint pushed back his chair and he stood up, spine straight and at parade rest just like he'd been trained.

In the end, Clint's speech made little impact. It did get him a reprieve from Gitmo or wherever else they were sending mass murderers these days. He spent his mornings and afternoons for the next few weeks having tests run on him and being prodded and poked physically and psychically.

He spent his evenings walking the broken down streets of New York.

\+ + +

Finding Phil again simultaneously felt like a gut shot and the best high Clint had ever experienced. It had been wretched to not know Phil or have Phil know him, but he'd survived worse.

Clint had survived days and months thinking Phil was dead and out of his reach.

There had a been a point very early on, while psychics and psychologists had been ripping apart his mind and trying to piece it back together, that he thought of eating his gun. He'd been truthful after that first debrief. He'd had nothing left. He'd lost Phil and the sanctity of home and he'd caused grievous sins on people he considered friend and family.

He saw the scars he'd left behind on city streets and on the faces of citizens he walked pass.

They might not know his part but that didn't stop the blame or guilt. 

Natasha had lectured him endlessly about how it hadn't been his fault. She went over his thoughts and arguments, handing them back to him with precise hits of words and phrases that made Clint flinch. She understood what it was to be used and to be brokered. She understood what it was to not to have a say in one's own actions. She understood all the various forms of abuse and misuse and rape.

She also understood how Clint would hold the red and the guilt for long years and possibly for life.

Having Coulson back was a balm.

Having Phil back was a benediction.

Having him back in Clint's arms and life were a gift.

While Clint was remorseful and sick with guilt of all that he'd done, he was not a good enough man to give Phil up.

He hoped that whatever Higher Power that had given Phil back to them would forgive Clint enough to let him keep Phil for a little while longer.

\+ + +

“So, you were teaching shop? In a high school? With actual teenagers?” Tony asked scratching at a scab on his chin. They were two days post a Doombot attack and they were all feeling a little ragged.

Clint lifted his head up from the conference table and he nodded. “Not like they have Life Model Decoy teenagers, Tony.” He frowned. “Well, most of them resembled actual humans. There were a few that may have been werewolves.”

Natasha kicked at him from under the table. “You are no longer allowed to watch that crap on television.”

“Besides Beacon Hill is set in California, not Oregon,” Phil said smoothly and he set the stack of reports on the table. “Do I need to go over how **not** to fill out a mission report again?”

The entire table groaned. 

“As I cannot print out video clips, let me be succinct. Mr. Stark, it is inappropriate to engage junior agents in reenactments of the battle. It is even more inappropriate to choreograph them into a Gangnam style dance break in the middle of it. They told me you heavily implied that it was an exercise in team building.” Phil's voice was so very flat and unamused that even Tony had no smart ass remark.

The debriefing was painful. Phil had a PowerPoint about exactly how all twenty sheets needed to be filled out. Even Cap was listing to the side by the time Phil finished.

“Now I am quite sure that I will not have to give this lecture again,” Phil smiled pleasantly and Clint knew he shouldn’t feel that turned on when Phil had just eviscerated their will to live with company policy and where one had to use ink and not pencil on which forms.

“God, no,” Tony mumbled and he had somehow rigged a paper noose around his neck to look like he'd hanged himself from the conference room railing. It was fitting in its artistry.

“Then please have a pleasant day. Thank you for your cooperation.” Phil stacked up his handouts and left with quick strides out of the door.

“Does anyone else get that goose stepping on your grave feeling whenever he thanks us?” Tony asked.

“Hey, I actually get what that means,” Steve said not looking up from filling out his 391-C form in pencil.

Clint debated on telling Steve that 381-D was the one needed to be filled out in pencil and the rest were to be filled out in blue or black ink. He shifted over when Tony unhooked himself and poked Thor with his foot. How Thor had ended up under the conference table, Clint was pretty sure he didn't want to know. 

“Seriously, you couldn't have just left him in that high school?” Tony grabbed a stack of blank forms and started doodling on the back of them.

Clint just pushed himself out of his chair. 

“It'd be pretty hard to plan their wedding if he left him across the country,” Natasha said and stacked her forms together and stood with Clint.

“What?!” Tony fell out of his chair and knocked against Bruce, waking him from a sound sleep. His fist shot out and clocked Tony in the face.

Clint lifted his own fist up to Natasha's. “That was amazing timing as usual, Tasha.”

She tapped her fist with his and wrinkled her nose a little that she'd actually done it. “You made me best woman. Consider that your bridal present.”

Clint headed toward Phil's office with a smile on his face. Stark getting punched was a super present as far as he was considered.

\+ + +

Clint had thought the mission had been a complete wash. That was until he'd heard the weak mewl coming from a rain pipe two meters off his six.

“Talk to me, Barton.”

Clint slid the gun back into the back of his pants and loped over to the drainpipe. It had been raining steadily in Portland for the past week. 

“Our choice of honeymoon destinations sucks, sir,” Clint said and cocked his head to listen again, trying to hear over the staccato beat of the rain against metal. “Romantic nostalgia and all that does not beat out beaches with umbrella drinks.”

“Barton,” Phil sighed over the phone. “I told you it was nothing. Come back to bed.”

“I know my hearing's not what you hired me for, but it's pretty damn good,” Clint tapped on the pipe and there was a faint cry. “Also, it's Coulson-Barton now.”

“That is an atrocious hyphenation.”

“You're just pissed because it'll take me longer to fill out forms,” Clint pulled his k-bar out of his boot and started to saw off the section of pipe. He started off higher than he needed and popped off the metal bands holding it to the house.

There was a faint thudding and Clint was wondering if his husband was banging his forehead against the wall. “I am headdesking. You've reduced me to an internet cliché.”

“Stuck with me, sir,” Clint said and peered down into the length of laminated sheet metal. The tiny mew was weaker still. “Hey, little guy. It's okay. I've got you.”

There was a beat of silence and then a very deep sigh over the line. “I'll go warm up some milk.”

“Hey, sir?”

“Yes, Barton?”

“I love you.”

“Come in out of the rain. Bring the furball with you.” Phil didn't wait for Clint's answer before hanging up.

Clint fished the kitten out of the pipe and cuddled it against his chest. “He grumps because he cares, baby. Just you wait and see.”

\+ + + 

Katniss was a year old when she realized her fathers were odd people. 

“Clint, your cat just sharpened her claws on my Kenneth Cole boots.”

“Why is she my cat when she does something bad and yours when you want kitten cuddles?”

“I let you name her, therefore she is more yours than mine,” Phil said picking up their cat and bringing her into the living room where Clint was laid up with a big cast swathing his leg. 

“You wanted to name her Captain. That's not creepy at all, sir,” Clint waved a hand and plucked the cat out of Phil's arms.

Phil just arched an eyebrow and bent down to kiss Clint. “Well, she has a star shaped marking on her side.”

“She's a Maine Coon. They don't have markings like that,” Clint said and lifted Kat's giant paws. “Just stripey things.”

Phil just shook his head. “You're impossible.”

“I know, but you still love me.”

Phil just smiled and adjusted his tie before patting Kat on the head and giving Clint another kiss. “God help me, but I do.”

\+ + + 

Clint was thirty nine when he sat on a couch in Avengers Tower and surveyed his family. Demi-god, super soldier, and men in iron suits, along with humans super and other wise just sat and laughed together. There was a warm weight of fur and purring noises in his lap and a heavier warmer weight against his side dressed in sharp Italian sewn lines and an expensive silk tie.

He was thirty nine with the slight weight of a band of gold circling his finger with a tiny cub on his lap and a partner with the heart of a lion next to him.

Being tossed to the lions didn't seem so scary these days. 

In fact, Clint rather looked forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story about wanting a fluffy piece about Phil and Clint finding a cat to adopt, and it turned into this where the cat only comes in at the end. : | Yeah. I don't know either, guys.
> 
> Big thanks to Schuyler for awesome beta powers. ;)
> 
> ETA: 09/24/12 Minor changes to the section starting with New Mexico. Debated on weather conditions in NM and decided to edited around it. Nothing major that changes the content of the story!


End file.
